A fellow “baby boomer” commented to me recently, “I guess we’ve all abandoned our dreams by now.”  I immediately reacted by saying, “Speak for yourself.” I for one can’t imagine abandoning my dreams.  Am I odd in that regard?  Am I naïve?  Am I different from my generation in that I’m still an optimistic dreamer?  Or was the fellow who made the remark the odd one?

I’m not quite sure if my hopeful outlook has to do with who I am, or is a trait of my culture as an American or I’m the product of the generation I grew up in?  I suppose my hope stems from all of the above.  I read an article in the May 20^th edition of Time Magazine, entitled the ME ME ME generation – the Millennials.  Part of the article talked about basic broad stroke traits of other generations.  Generally I don’t like broad stroke summations of a culture or a generation but nevertheless I found some of the descriptions to be pretty much on target.

As far as being “hopeful” the Millennials are more in kin to the Baby Boomers, and tend to believe in themselves and the power of realizing their dreams.  They seem to be more interested in what they can do and on a global scale than Generation X, which came before them.  Sadly, Generation X came up at time when “greed was good”, “heroin chic” was a style in vogue and ennui ruled the day.  Those are pretty broad strokes for sure, but I think the over riding thread that seems to define a generation is whether they tend to be hopeful or not.

I find that I always need to be creating something.  It’s what gets me up in the morning.  It’s what gives me hope.  It’s also what every single person possessed who took part in our film project.  They all believed that they were doing whatever was in their power to do and that gave them hope.  Of course the key is in the doing and that is why I love to create.

Think about it.  You can either give yourself reasons NOT to do something or you can give yourself reasons TO do something.  Giving yourself reasons not to do something may seem like it empowers you but it actually leaves you powerless.  It puts your destiny in everyone else’s hands.  That rarely yields hope.  The act of doing something, on the other hand, creates possibility.

The universe holds possibility for anything and everything to happen – we just need to put things into motion to allow them to happen.  Nine out of ten things might not work out but that doesn’t mean they didn’t play a part in the process.  It doesn’t mean they didn’t have value.  Perhaps the value will be realized later on.

“If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop the story.”

Orson Welles